


Chiptune

by NewLense



Category: Steven Universe (Cartoon)
Genre: Adults, Amnesia, Canon Divergence, Consent, Emotional Intimacy, F/M, Falling In Love, Jam Buds, Married Couple, NASA, Physical Intimacy, Present Tense, Sexual Intimacy, Temporary Amnesia
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-11-04
Updated: 2020-02-10
Packaged: 2021-01-22 20:41:10
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 12,825
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21308300
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NewLense/pseuds/NewLense
Summary: She does not remember him, the half-alien hero they say is her husband. She can barely  even remember herself. But for the man who sings and plays so sweetly for her despite it all, she is willing to try. (Canon Divergence. Glacial Updates. Rating increased for later chapters and with respect for community rating standards.)
Relationships: Connie Maheswaran/Steven Universe
Comments: 66
Kudos: 294





	1. Introduction

Cerebral hypoxia, the doctor tells her. _(Mother, Connie corrects herself)_. A warp malfunction had exposed her to vacuum conditions for several minutes before she was recovered, but scans show no permanent neurological damage. More worrisome at this point are the radiation burns where her flight suit had failed. She will have to remain at the hospital at least overnight for monitoring.

“I don’t see why any of this is a problem,” a woman says at a low grumble. “Loverboy could just lay one on her and she’d be fine.”

“Amethyst.” The man standing at her bedside shakes his head minutely and the strange woman huffs, folding herself into a further slouch against the wall. He glances down at her _(Connie’s heart skips a beat) _and then back at her mother. “How long will this last, Priyanka?”

“It’s hard to say. A period of amnesia following TBI is fairly common, but her loss seems more fragmented than temporally graded. It could be anywhere from a few days to a few months. Years. But she will remember, Steven. Eventually.”

The man nods with a concerned frown while her father and two other women move forward with their own questions.

It is so hard to think through this fog of confusion and medication. The heart monitor pulses steadily overhead, like the background beat to an old videogame. The man notices her unrest and adjusts her pillows for her so that she is sitting up more comfortably. He offers her water through a straw and she finds herself drifting between her limited awareness and sleep.

Connie comes to at the sound of raised voices. Most of the group has moved out of her room into the hallway. It seems they are arguing now about where she should stay during her recovery. The man (_Steven, she remembers them calling him, and what a bizarrely normal name for someone of his apparent status_) has pulled a chair up next to her bed, although with his burly frame the fit seems a poor one. He is humming softly to her, the soothing rumble matching the tempo of the monitor above her. His dark eyes are soft on her face.

This is her husband, they had told her. Not fully human from the size of him and the strange but beautiful gemstone embedded in his stomach. Some kind of galactic prince to her astronaut from what she has gathered. She wonders absently if she had discovered him out there in the black, or vice versa. He seems kind and is so very handsome, even with his face drawn in worry, but while there is instinctive heat and pleasure in that fact the yawning void of her memory terrifies her.

“What if I never remember?” she manages to ask in a wavering voice she barely recognizes as her own. Her throat is still sore from intubation, and she cannot help the accusation in her tone even as she wishes to soften it, to gentle the blow this must be to him.

The humming stops. The man – _Steven _\- hesitates, then reaches out to touch his hand to hers, asking silent permission. After a moment she slides her fingers so that they fit loosely through his, noting the difference in size and color and enjoying the gentle squeeze he gives her.

“We were best friends first,” he says with a smile. “I hope we can be again.”

No anger, no pressure or entitlement. She believes from the conviction in his voice that that would be enough for him. That she as she is now, alive and healing, is more than enough. She remembers her long, lonely childhood, that burning wish for a friend over everything and anything else, and she allows the love she can feel radiating from him to warm her.

“I want to stay with you. Please.”

“My – ” He tears up and with his broadening smile the effect is shockingly charming. “Of course you can, Connie.” He squeezes her hand again, glancing behind him at the door as he takes a calming breath. “Do you think you can stay awake a little longer? I think you’d prefer telling them yourself when they come back in, or I could get them for you…”

He trails off as she strokes her fingers down through his, entangling them as best she can. The monitor’s digital tone increases its pace at the cool press of his wedding band to her feverish skin.

She does not remember him, this kind man who was – is – her husband, but she is growing certain that he is the one person she never should have forgotten.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The movie nearly destroyed me it was so good. Amnesia tropes are classic for a reason, and romantic amnesia tropes are even more delightfully ridiculous. 
> 
> And more Connverse is always needed.
> 
> This story is pretty much all romance with angst only where appropriate. No deceptions, coverups, or misunderstandings - just friendship, falling in love again, happy sexual tension and later intimacy. All characters are somewhere past the age of 25 in this future-forward story to allow for full frontal lobe development and for character career choice technicalities. 
> 
> [Chapter Edit: 2/14/20]


	2. Downbeat

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Appropriate angst needed to reach a brighter sky.

Dr. Connie Maheswaran is a strong woman.

She chats with her nurses as they change her dressings, she fills out her own discharge paperwork and fields several calls from her frantic superior while keeping a smile ready for her parents and the rest of her suddenly expanded family. Focusing on the moment has always helped her push through adversity, and she leans on that skill now. Her mother and Dr. Jelani tell her it is likely only her explicit memory that has been affected, and as long as she can still fly Connie decides she can face down anything, even the lorem ipsum of her mind. And so she tells herself that she is not surprised when they pull up to the temple in Steven’s refitted Dondai two days later.

She and Steven are married; it makes sense according to common societal practice that they would live together, even if she cannot remember it. Logic will have to be the placeholder here as it always is with the needle creeping to the red. Still, it is disconcerting (_terrifying_) to walk into the modernized beach house that has been hers all these years to find her swords and her books sharing space with guitars and magic, alien technology as if she had simply never noticed them.

Connie picks up one of the photo frames resting near the entryway as Pearl (_who has always been an alien, apparently – or a gem as they call themselves_) and Steven’s father set up to prepare dinner in the kitchen. A younger version of herself laughs up at her from atop an ecstatic looking Steven’s shoulders, holding her arms out in a pantomime of wings to be answered with her frown in real-time.

“You okay?” Steven rests a friendly hand on her shoulder, coming up behind her with the flower arrangement her NASA team had sent tucked in his other arm. The scent of his cologne combines with that of the plumerias and a shiver arcs through her at the absent swirl of his thumb against her back. He chuckles at the photograph and for a moment in the warmth of him, the unease (_fear) _disappears. “Graduation in Space City, Thecas five years ago – you got certified that day. Where would you like these?”

“Oh, I mean. On the end table is fine.” She turns to watch him cross into the living room at her permission like he is a guest in his own house. “I remember that day.”

“Do you?” His tone is relaxed, but there is hope there carefully masked in his smile. Pearl and Mr. Universe lean over the countertop to watch them.

(_She is fine, she decides._)

“Most of it, I think. Pearl and I drilled those last maneuvers forever, I could have probably flown in my sleep. Then all the graduates piled in the Jag to race Chief down the tarmac and we all nearly crashed anyway.” But the fond memory frays at the edges, loose strings of details and persons billowing into shadow. She does not add what she cannot remember, and from the expression on the others’ faces, she does not need to. Only Steven seems unaffected by the implication, his smile warming in genuine pleasure for her.

“I’m glad. You said that was one of the best times of your life.”

Connie sets the frame back down and returns the smile. (_She is fine_.) The bandages around her head and torso feel too tight. “Yeah.” 

* * *

(_A simple course correction is needed._)

* * *

“Are you sure? I actually set up the couch for Dad and me.” Steven looks at the worn pillows and blankets he has thrown down with obvious concern. “You can have the bed if you want.”

Connie does not want to go up to their bedroom. To see the space they are supposed to share together as she lies alone. To take another thing from this man. “I’d like to be closer to the sea if that’s okay. It’s been kind of hard to sleep with all the –” She gestures at herself. “And the waves are just so relaxing.”

Mr. Universe claps his son on the arm when it looks like Steven will protest again. “That they are. One of the reasons I’ll always come back to Beach City. Come on, Schtu-Ball. It’ll be like old times.”

Steven still seems worried, but he acquiesces with a chuckle at his father’s grin and continued prodding. “Well okay, then, if you’re sure.” His hand raises as if to reach for her (_please_) and there is a look on his face that Connie wants to drink in, but he appears to catch himself. His fingers flex over empty air. “Good night, Connie. Let me know if you need anything.”

The men head up the stairs, Mr. Universe keeping a supportive hand on Steven’s back. Connie waits until the lights switch off, for the soft click of the door closing before taking her seat on the couch. She ignores the blankets, too thin for real comfort. Slowly her hands card into her hair, and she bows her head against the shame of sending Steven to face what she cannot.  
  


* * *

Command Pilot C. Maheswaran is a practical woman.

The human brain is a complex instrument, but it is an instrument all the same. She has been reintroduced to the gems Garnet and Amethyst, the final members of her estranged family. They have taken her amnesia in surprising stride and – more interestingly – believe her condition to be something like “reformation”, which she understands is the healing process gems undergo after being hurt. That had not been their exact wording -

(_Steven’s voice ringing like a struck shield: “Connie is not corrupted.”_)

\- but it suits her purpose. She can work with this idea of reforming. All she needs are coordinates and a clear sky. Mr. Universe _(“Greg, please, Connie.”) _seems to have some idea of what she is planning and clearly has his reservations, but he points her in the direction she needs. Pearl is disapproving, but she can find no fault in her protégé’s logic and only warns her that weapons drawn cannot easily be put away.

Steven is charmingly (_frustratingly)_ oblivious.

“I told them I was on family leave,” he says, more to himself than her as his hands move over one of the many holographic screens winking into the conservatory, all bright with insistent lines of alien text. The forceful, angry slide of his muscles underneath his black shirt makes her heart stutter and her mouth to go dry.

“Brass giving you trouble?” She moves closer to him. Always closer to him and never close enough. He does not touch her but for fleeting passes of his fingertips across her hand or shoulder, and it is never a conscious decision on his part. Is it the bandages, she wonders, that makes him afraid to cross into her personal space? Does he think he will hurt her (_like she is hurting him_)?

“The Diamonds,” Steven says with an exasperated scowl. “Royal space family, kind of,” he adds when he notices her inquiring brow. Something in her ensuing expression then makes the corner of his lips quirk upwards. Even agitated and scruffy with five o’clock shadow (_has he not been sleeping?_) he is achingly handsome. His eyes caress her where his hands will not.

“You should go,” she manages to say.

“I want to be here for you,” he replies, and the unshakable devotion in his voice strengthens her resolve.

“The sooner you take care of this, the sooner they’ll be off your back, right? Really, I’ll be fine.”

(_Because she is fine_.)

His eyes move down away from hers, back to the console, and she can breathe again. “You’re probably right.”

_ (She is_.)

“I should be back in a few days. Pearl knows how to contact me - please call if you need me.”

The farewell kiss that does not come is suffocating.

* * *

_(She will make this fine.) _

* * *

Connie Maheswaran-Universe was a happy woman.

A happy girl, too, before that, and Connie almost throws the photo album away from her because it is impossible. But that is twelve-year-old Connie smiling ear to ear in her old circle frames. And beside her, his smile even wider and curly hair an even more unruly spectacle than it is now is Steven Universe.

Carefully she pulls the photo out from the protective plastic and turns it over. There are the old and cracked stickers she expects from a genuine artifact of her childhood. There is also writing. _My best friend_, childish scrawl proclaims in looping sharpie. Beneath it, in the neat ballpoint script of her mission reports, _Love of my life._

Connie is not sure what she was expecting. For something like this to move her, flip the right switches? Simple stimulus-response leading to spontaneous recovery? The still photographs unnerve her, too much like the photoshopped dreams of the girl who sat alone at the edge of the pier every summer when other children played.

Here is a picture of Steven presenting her with her first sword, the same oversized pink saber still displayed on her bookshelf. _Miss Knight _is written on the back of it, the more angular child handwriting surrounded by doodles of stars. Had she originally taken up fencing for Steven? The role of the protector has always appealed to her.

Another picture, this one of prom that she knows she never attended. The only dances she ever performs in front of other people are on the training mats or in the air, and high school had been too busy a time for her with all her AP classes and extracurriculars anyway. _Came, conquered and left early_ the note on the back agrees with a suggestive heart and smiley face. In the improbable photograph, young Connie and Steven laugh and hang off each other’s shoulders in matching vests and suits.

Connie’s disbelief grows the further she progresses into the album. Many pictures are of her and Steven, together or alone, but the majority of the pictures show them in the context of a larger family than she could have imagined. There are giant women whose forced perspective seems laughably exaggerated until she realizes they are to scale. There are pink lions, pink humans, and so many different gems that she wonders if the invasion Pearl spoke of did not happen after all.

It is a fantasy. The difference between her fragmented experience (_all she has_) and this alleged timeline of love and adventure and family (_all she wants_) is too disparate. Unreal.

She needs firmer proof. A stronger, irrefutable connection. Because her life seems to be an unraveling lie.

* * *

The video shakes as the camera operator tries and fails to stifle their laughter. Through the rolling bars of static on the screen, Steven performs a sidling dance up to the seated Connie on the beach. The woman laughs and lowers her sunglasses to eye him with a quirked brow. “What’s going on there, Steven?” An exaggerated swivel of his hips and she shrieks, delighted but scandalized, as he begins a positively burlesque unbuttoning of his shirt. “Steven!”

He flares the shirt out behind him and poses for her, gesturing to the shining gem at the center of him. “Marry me?”

“Oh my stars!”

It is pandemonium. Overlaying all the cheering and joyful screaming there is laughter, and Connie, alone in the dark, watching herself being twirled up into the sky and back into Steven’s arms, cannot figure out the joke.  
  


* * *

“Here she is. The toughest, most amazing space knight in the galaxy, back from another day of revolutionizing human-gem aerospace procedure. Centrifuge again?”

“Hey Con, you look janked!”

“Steven, I’m covered in sweat and bearing grease and I haven’t slept in seventeen hours - get that camera away from me!” But the woman smiles and lets the hand reaching out from behind the camera to tug her closer.

“So modest. You're beautiful. Do you think you can eat? Amethyst and I’ve been making pasta.”

“Is that what this is? Documentation? All I want is a shower and some sleep. And a massage. Maybe an energy boost.”

The video swerves and shakes as the camera is put down on the countertop, landing angled toward the living room to capture an apron-clad Steven stalking after an unconcerned Connie. “You know, I’m actually not very hungry myself– ”

“Steven, let her go! You promised me cappelletti!”

* * *

“Connie, are you doing okay?” Greg hovers in the doorway, fingers running over his carabineer uncertainly as his eyes move between the van parked outside and the woman curled in front of the television. He is a good man, like his son, and pain flares at another bond forgotten. After Steven and Pearl, Greg Universe had apparently been her closest confidant and a beloved friend. “Did you maybe want to join me? This killer music joint just opened up, and –”

“No, thank you.”

“I mean,” he continues, voice rising with his discomfort. “You’ve been at this for hours.” A beat. “I don’t think this is good for you.”

“I’m – ” But she cannot bring herself to lie to his face. “I have to do this.”

“Connie.”

“Please.”

At least he seems to understand. “I’ll just be a few blocks away if you change your mind.”

And isn’t that the crux of it.

* * *

More videos. More scenes of her and Steven together. She has established a rhythm to it, the shuttered click of the disk feed and the whir of the player a steady beat to which Connie orchestrates her pain.

Here is her wedding. She is in traditional red like she has always secretly wanted, vested in gold of both Earth and alien design. Steven is resplendent in a tuxedo and a smile brighter than the rising sun behind them. She is laughing as she holds on to his arm to keep him tethered to the ground as he appears to be literally walking on air.

Their honeymoon, now. Visions of the sea and lights of every color. Steven limned in the bright neon pink of the fireworks as he backs her against the ship railing for a kiss.

There are scenes of them dancing together, silly and flirty at a bar or with more practiced heat in formal attire. Scenes of them sparring with or against each other. Scenes of Steven singing to her from across the reflective strings of his guitar.

Steven laughing with her. Steven smiling for her.

The videos continue to play, the images blurring together faster in a deafening whine until the last disk ejects and the dull roar of static fills the room.

* * *

Connie is a woman uncertain of who she is. Why can't she remember?

* * *

It happens the day Steven is supposed to return. She is up in their bedroom, finally having braved it to look through her closets for something pretty to wear for him. She knows he still finds her attractive; maybe she can find something flirty in all her durable jeans and formal suits that won’t clash too terribly with her bandages, something that will prove that she is fine (_she is, she will be, dammit) _and make him want to touch her again. Opening the closet doors, she finds herself shocked still.

Connie had never made many friends as a young girl. (_How can she really know?_) Instead, she had spent all her time in books or following her father and mother as they moved through their separate routines around the house. Because of the nomadic nature of her father’s work, her mother had been content to keep most of her clothes in an old leather suitcase, practical styles to be worn going in and out from long hospital shifts. But Priyanka Maheswaran had kept a few dresses on covered hangers for special occasions, beautiful swathes of perfumed fabric that Connie had longed to put on, that she tried to imitate with girlish sundresses and skirts in the hopes of one day becoming special to someone like the characters in her stories always were. Someone who could inspire the devotion she could see pass between her parents on those rare nights their family was all together.

Then she entered high school, and later college, and she found ways to feel special on her own. She had put her love of so-called feminine things away for clothes and hobbies that seemed more appropriate for a biologist and hopeful astronaut. She had abandoned softness and desire to chase the stars she loved.

Except, it seemed, she hadn’t.

Connie carefully pulls out a pair of heels by their straps, the black leather so polished they appear to have been poured from ink. They are stilettos with high arches matching the curves and intimidation factor of some of her favorite swords. These are the kind of shoes you only wear for love or war, the kind of shoes whose whole point is to revel on the brink of absolute power and vulnerability, and the blaze of their sexuality has Connie trembling. She never thought she would get to wear something like this. That she would want and be allowed to enjoy her body outside of combat and utilitarian function.

But she must enjoy that part of herself with Steven, she realizes, looking at the rows of cocktail dresses, formal gowns, and skirts sharing space with her comfortable jeans and aviator jackets. This secret, almost lost part of herself, protected and celebrated with Steven.

For the first time, she allows herself to really look around her in the bedroom. The bed is low and large with an overstuffed down comforter in all white, dressed in dozens of pillows for comfort and more exciting indulgences. The lamps are set to warm, intimate lighting. There is the faint aroma of her favorite perfume bright in the air here from where she must have woken up healthy and whole only a week ago, and underneath it the darker and more masculine scent of her husband.

“Oh.” There is a fire in her chest, pressing up into her cheeks. She crosses over to the vanity as if hypnotized, sitting down on the velvet tufted chair and sharing a wondering look with the woman in the mirror. She stares down at the plethora of makeup neatly organized across the oak surface, takes in the bold lipsticks and eyeshadow palettes, and picks up the blending brush with numb fingers. Before she realizes it she has applied eyeliner and shadow to create a classic look for herself and she has no idea how this could be. Her mother has only ever donned lipstick and mascara when formal occasions necessitate it, and her peers in college and in training had never bothered.

He must have taught her this, she realizes as she moves on to apply her blush, and the idea comes from nowhere but she somehow knows it to be true. He must help her put it on, maybe laughs with her at the more dramatic styles they attempt, might lick his finger to wipe away little mistakes. As she moves the brush over her skin she can almost feel hands tilting her chin up to the light, the gentle pressure of the stroking bristles like a slow and trailing press of lips across her cheek.

_ My Connie_, a voice sighs in adoration.

The brush drops to the countertop, knocking up clouds of dust from the palette and sending several tubes of lipstick rolling as Connie’s hands crush against her face as if to keep the spectral fingers there. There is a pulse in her heart, an impression of love like a song playing from far away that is so beautiful and fragile that her chest aches at containing it. “Steven?”

But there is no further answer inside her, just a blackness devoid of stars.

Connie stands from her chair, picks it up from the legs, and slams it across the vanity. Wood and glass explode out as the mirror caves under her first blow, the thicker oak of the drawers cracking and then splintering at her second and third. The chair breaks so she uses her fists. There are shards of the mirror in her knuckles now, but the pain of the glass is a bright and clean thing compared to the razor wire she can feel inside her, tearing out from her lungs and up her throat. She is screaming, she realizes, broken sobs of fury and despairing terror at the full realization of what has been taken from her. There is a burst of pink light, a rush of heat and pressure as the ruin around her is forced away, and then his real hands are holding her face.

“Connie! Connie, what’s - ”

“Where are you?” she screams.

“I’m here! I’m right here!”

“No, you’re not! You’re not anywhere!” Her shaking hands grasp for him, frame his tortured expression in red. “I’ve tried looking, there’s nothing of you in me! Nothing! How could I have forgotten you? I’ve lost everything, destroyed everything! I’m fucking broken, ruined, I’m so – ” She can barely breathe through her grief. “I’m so empty! How can you even stand to _look_ at me for doing this to you, to our family– ”

“Please.” Steven’s voice cracks on a sob. “Let me hold you.”

Connie lunges forward and the galaxy of his arms envelops her. They collapse backward against the closet doors with a crash, Steven’s knees rising up behind her to anchor her in his lap as he locks the whole line of her torso against his. A terrible choking sound forces its way past his gritted teeth as she sobs into his neck.

“My Connie,” he gasps, and it shatters her. He is crying too, she realizes, feeling his throat work to keep his tears silent as he rocks them slowly back and forth. Minutes, hours - time has no meaning. He is too good for her, warm and solid and finally touching her. Her tears begin to slow to hiccupping coughs as he whispers soothing words.

“I’m here now, Connie. I don’t care what else happens on Homeworld, on Earth.” A hand strokes up her back to tangle gently in her hair. His voice molds to the jagged edges of her heart. “I am not leaving you again unless you ask me to. I never should have left in the first place.”

“Your job is important,” she mutters, and his arms tighten.

“Nothing is more important to me than you.”

“How can you say that? I forgot you. I’m supposed to love you.”

“You don’t have to.”

“I want to! Steven, I’ve looked through all those albums, the videos - I watched our wedding _seven times_. The person I was fought through battle, through grad school and – and United States bureaucracy to carve out this amazing, beautiful life with you, and I don’t know how I’m going to get it back!”

He pulls back just enough to look at her. “Is that what you’ve been doing the past few days?” he asks, gentle and sad. “Torturing yourself like this?”

“I thought –” She runs her hands down his chest, curls her fingers into his shirt. She focuses on the strong heart she can feel beating under her palms. “Maybe it could fill in the gaps. Make me remember. I want – I _need_ -” And the tears start again.

“Connie, you know that’s not how this works.” His hand resumes stroking through her hair. “Those memories – they are important, but they are not what defines you. They are not what ever defined us. We were – we are an experience. I truly believe your memory will come back, and if it doesn’t that’s okay. If you want, we can make new memories together.” A pause. His voice gentles further. “I love you. Your friend, your husband – whatever you need me to be.”

“You won’t touch me.” It is almost an accusation. “You won’t hold me or kiss me.”

“I – ” A racking shudder goes through him. Gently Steven takes her hands in his, brings them to his mouth to breathe on them as one might to ward off cold or to fog glass and her heart skips at the heat of him. There is a wash of sensation and her cuts and bruises slowly fade amongst shimmers of light.

“What – ”

“Healing saliva.” He appears embarrassed, but also regretful. One hand lets go of hers to cup the side of her face. His thumb catches and strokes away more errant tears. “When I heal someone, it repairs the damage but leaves a part of my gem matrix behind at a cellular level. It changes them. Your mother and the gems – if I try to heal this for you before your brain repairs the connections itself, they think it could really hurt you. And even if it wouldn’t,” he adds with fierce sincerity, “I would never touch you that way unless it was something you wanted. I’ve only wanted you to feel safe with me. I never meant to make you feel worse.”

Connie feels her throat closing up. “What? So, we can’t ever…”

His cheeks are still wet like hers, his eyes lined with the same exhaustion, but Steven’s dawning smile at the question is deliciously warm and hopeful, and she feels an answering expression tug on her lips. “When the doctors say you are fully healed,” he says slowly, “and if you decide it is something you want, I will kiss you as much as you ask, Connie.”

“What if I decide I want… _affection_ before that?”

A breathless chuckle. The careful return of his arms around her. “Then there are other things I can do for you.” The smoke in his voice is exhilarating.

Connie rests her head back against his chest, sliding her arms around him so that she can shift even closer. He adjusts their sitting position on the floor to something more stable and she enjoys the strong and solid feel of him moving beneath her. “I like this,” she sighs.

“So do I.” He trails his fingertips up and down her spine, mindful of her bandages, and lets his head fall back against the closet doors. A shaking sigh escapes him. “Man, I needed that cry.”

“You needed it?" she teases, feeling braver than she has in days. More like herself, whoever that is now. "The superpowered galactic hero?”

“Okay. I cry like – all the time. Kind of a defining feature. There was this old dog on the boardwalk the other day? Nothing wrong with it, it was just old and had a mustache. Completely lost it. You’d have laughed.”

Connie does laugh and it feels so very good to do so. Steven hums out another sigh, contented this time, the movement of his broad chest lifting her up with it and down again like a supporting wave. The hum turns into a quiet melody, and then Steven begins murmuring a song into her hair. It is a light and silly little thing about clean shirts and jam and while his voice is still hoarse from emotion it is still the most beautiful thing she has ever heard. She never wants to listen to anything else again.

“What is that?”

“Hmm. The first song we wrote together.”

“The first?” Another watery laugh. How many songs are there? Her heart feels so light, she is so excited yet full of a strange, lulling peace. Is this what falling in love is? “I don’t know the words.”

“S’okay. If you want, I’ll teach them to you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If the Jam Buds song is a fandom cliché, then take this as your warning now that I absolutely will rampage with any and all tropes that catch my fancy.
> 
> Thank you to all who have commented, left kudos, and clicked on this story to give it a chance. This chapter is the darkest this story is going to get - I did not appreciate the trauma this scenario could inflict on Connie and her family before I began work on this section. I am hoping for at least ten more chapters of progressively intense romance as Connie and Steven rediscover themselves. I hope you continue to trust me. Updates will likely be slow to assure for quality.
> 
> [Chapter Edit: 2/14/20]


	3. Tonic Chord

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Increased physical and emotional intimacy, cut with dashes of stubborn (but resolvable) melancholy inherent in the story’s premise. Strong hints of past and future sensuality.

There are rhythms to things, Connie remembers thinking once, the touch of the violin at her chin her only support as she performs her partita alone on a stage simultaneously too large and too small for her. A rhythm for each person, each environment and interaction, and following this thought in the burn of the lights and the pang of empty seats behind the judging panel is the awareness that she is (_will always be_) offbeat.

It would take some years before she would appreciate the strength in this.

Pearl is the metronome to which Connie has set much of herself. A secondary mother figure in childhood with the same passion for the riposte and the stars, later the fond but long-suffering sergeant to her reckless cadet, Pearl was the first person Connie remembers to ever fall in tempo with her. To provide structure instead of control. And from Pearl, she learned to walk (_balance_) among other people.

High school had given Connie her first understanding of friendship outside the artificial dynamics of her books and television shows. The lack of perfection, the relief in acknowledging the impossibility of it, had been staggering. It was not only acceptable to be off-kilter, it was expected. She could be anything, anyone. Even herself.

Graduate school had been a further revelation. Never had Connie been around people so alike yet different from her, all too intense, too competitive like the woman burning through the chains of her own limits. Entering the flight academy in preparation for NASA had introduced her to a community boundless but for the pull of gravity, and she and her colleagues in the Muse Initiative (_the siblings her parents always wanted for her that circumstance never allowed_) found a way to push past even that.

From her plaintive, too accented solo, Connie has built a life of full chorus, still alone and still just a little offbeat, but cradled now in the center of sound.

How strange (_how amazing_) to find herself suddenly in a duet.

What is a best friend? For all her experience she has never understood the weight others place on the title, not until now. This instant, absolute connection like tandem flight, a binary star system - it should frighten her. By rights, this rhythm should be impossible.

But she and Steven have done this before.

Before NASA’s Initiative, before her wings, there had been Steven. He had been there before college, walked with her before even Pearl. The sweet twang of a child’s ukulele, now the seductive drawl of an electric guitar, winds around her in improvisation now that the sheet music has been lost or rearranged. Not just sound but true music and perhaps the first she has ever performed. There is an urge to tell Steven everything that she does not fully understand, every dark thought and bright dream and (_shattered_) detail of her life, but beyond even that there is a consuming need to know him.

(_This man who is less a stranger to her than herself._)

Connie begins with questions.

At first she tries to keep them gentle, free of the saber-like focus she brings to missions and research hypotheses, but Steven smiles and runs an encouraging thumb along the dark line of unbandaged skin between her jeans and shirt like he expects this edge to her. Even finds it attractive. Her restraint breaks into an investigation (_interrogation_) interrupted only once by their concerned family. They are waved off with identical gestures of reassurance that has them both laughing.

When is his birthday, so that she can prepare? (_Next month, August 15. He is older than her by a year and some change. No, Steven, she is not gift enough._)

What is the gemstone set where his navel would be? (_A Pink Diamond with the weight of an unwanted empire._)

Can she…? _(He guides her hand through the gaps in his shirt and the gem fits perfectly into her palm, warm and smooth with lines she wants pressed against her more intimately. It glows at her touch and she calls it beautiful. She says it again because even she had never told him this before._)  
  


* * *

“How did we first meet?”

Connie watches Steven from the foot of the bed as he wraps their ruined vanity in a sphere of light and appears to just – teleport it away with a tap of his fingers. He is no more concerned with this near-impossible act than she would be filing the redundant projections Deschene always manages to send her as he shuffles around the labs after hours. (_Magic_. _No. Maybe. It’s Steven._) The scientist in her is fascinated by this alien phenomenon, the pilot enticed by the resonant power she can feel vibrating through the floorboards, but the latchkey kid at the wick of her still cannot understand how her once black and white world could have ever intersected with someone as prismatic as Steven. Reality and memory all bend around him.

“You were just hours out from lifesaving surgery, and it seemed like the right time to stop and introduce myself.” Steven dusts off his hands and winks at her over his shoulder. His mission of the past hour has been to joke and flirt as much as possible to allay previous tears with her laughter, and his efforts always work. He is – _fun_. Inherently so. Even just to be around, let alone when he is trying to be charming. “Maybe get your number.”

“Steven, I’m serious! I look twelve or younger in some of those pictures – my home life wasn’t exactly stable at that age. Geographically.”

“Well.” He takes one of the boxes of surviving perfumes and beauty accessories they have organized and slides it onto an upper shelf in the closet. “Technically, we first met at the Boardwalk Parade here in Beach City.”

“Technically?”

“We made eye contact.” The exaggerated wistfulness in his voice pulls an actual giggle from Connie not heard since the doors of middle school closed and she cannot find it in herself to feel embarrassed.

“That’s not a first meeting!”

“Sure felt like it to me.” His tone is softer now, like the trail of his fingertips across the curve of her nape and shoulder that he seems fond of. Her hand rises to the back of her neck in unconscious mimicry as another box goes into the closet. “I love Beach City; I was always going to come back to it. So much history, good and bad, but it was a little lonely growing up.”

“Lonely?”

“Not a lot of young kids back then. I had Dad, and the Gems.” Lines of fatigue still darken the skin around his eyes, but his smiles are as large as the rest of him and love of his (_their_) family suffuses him now. He shrugs and his grin fades into something more contemplative. “But not a lot of friends.”

He takes a shirt down from its closet hanger. Before Connie has time to process it, he has stripped out of his wrinkled and tearstained button-up and pulled the more casual tee on, blithe to the action like his body is another impossible and beautiful thing she is supposed to take for granted. He kicks the discarded garment into the closet and closes the doors, turning to lean against them with his arms crossed. “You were actually the first girl I had ever seen around my age.” His smile grows again and tilts to the right with a secret. “Near mythical.”

Connie is still too distracted from the broad expanse of skin and the flash of light along the facets of his gem to debate this description of her. “Sure.”

Steven must read the doubt in her anyway because he suddenly sets off with a passion that has her fingers curling into the thick bedspread. “And so cool! You had this pretty ribbon dress on, white and mint green, I think? And these – these _boots_.” He gestures to his own sandaled feet and seems to struggle to voice the significance boyhood had placed on these details. Connie has a difficult time handling the swarm of butterflies filling her lungs with every word. “And tinted glasses. Glow sticks and jewelry from Funland the night before and I couldn’t believe I hadn’t seen you at the party. I mean.” He motions at her like nothing more needs to be said. “You looked a little lonely, too.”

(_Oh._)

“I waved from Dad’s float and you – okay, the crowd waved back, but it felt like you were waving to me.” He taps at his chest with two fingers.

“I didn’t wave?” The thought offends her.

“No, no, you did! You dropped your glow bracelet then. It was near the end of the parade on Thayer Street, so I jogged back to find it as soon as I climbed down. I was hoping I could find you, but I guess you’d already left.”

Connie remembers the parade. She remembers it with a clarity that is odd for such a relatively trivial event, the neural pathway strong from the repeated recall of details and feelings but absent of any apparent reason for the golden fondness it sings with. The capriciousness with which Steven has been cut from or painted over in her memory is - (_No. He is here now.) _

“I was on a tight schedule. We only stayed as long as we did because Dad was working extra security.” What had young Connie thought of the boy waving to her from across the velvet dividers between them?

“I kept your bracelet in my freezer so the glow wouldn’t fade. Sometimes I would see you in town. Not often but enough that I always looked. I would dash back to the temple to grab it, but you were always gone by the time I got back!” Steven has been gesticulating as he speaks, closer to her now as he paces out their past. “So, I got a bike, thinking, you know. Next time I’d be faster. I’d even be _cooler_.”

“Cooler.” What had young Steven thought of himself?

“Yeah. I’d drop the kickstand all casual, just – flow into something, like.” He stops and glances down at her, eyes half-lidded, and finger-gun cocked with a snap. “‘I hear you’ve been missing something.’”

From a child the line would be silly, even charming, although she suspects she would have been too shy at that time to do anything besides adjust her glasses or hide further behind her books. The words sound very different coming in Steven’s rich baritone. Her heart races.

“You little Casanova!” she says with a laugh. Steven reddens and throws up his hands, and oh, it is not fair how fetching this looks. She needs to learn how to make him blush like this again.

“It’s what the heroes in all the TV shows and movies would say! Connie, you were _so cool_. You were always reading these adult looking books or – staring mysteriously out at the sea or the clouds – ”

Connie sputters into more laughter and almost tilts over with it at his affronted expression. He crouches down in front of her and if it were not for her burns, she is certain the hands poised above her would be tickling into her sides. Muscle memory from early childhood has her waving a defensive arm at him anyway and he catches her wrist with his own laugh. It is a deep, throaty waterfall of a sound that flows through her pulse to curl at the deepest parts of her and already her favorite thing in the world.

“I wanted so badly to impress you!” he says. “I thought I’d never get the chance! But then you came to me.”

Steven’s hands are so much bigger than hers. Everything about him is bigger and larger than what she supposes she expected from a man, and Connie is unfamiliar with the notion of anyone more physically powerful than her except for Pearl and, still in some ways, her mother. When Steven touches her even lightly it feels like a full embrace, and the way her hand vanishes into his like it is now is sensual in a way that should be ridiculous.

“Came to you?”

He gestures toward the window with his other hand. “Just around the cliff there. No one ever came that close to the temple before. I can’t tell you how excited I was that you were so close to me. I could invite you over to hang out, maybe show you my room.” They both smile at the thrill this would have carried in childhood, at where they are now. “We could play video games or watch TV. I could find out what music you liked so that I could learn to play it for you.

“I rode out there with my Cooler-Steven bike.” He laughs again and Connie bites the inside of her cheek. “And you didn’t even notice me until I fell off it! I had to psych myself up to try again, and then!” More laughter. “Just.”

“What?” Connie asks, spellbound.

He mimes an explosion with his arms. “Disaster! A corrupted gem, earthquakes, and part of the temple almost crushed you. I ran and pushed you out of the way, landing on top of you like – ”

Both of his arms move to bracket her on either side of the bedspread. Steven does not shift from his crouched position before her, but the warm cliché is implied, like the scenes in the movies her father enjoys that Connie now wants on loop.

“Oh.”

The position would have been innocent and funny then. It is not so innocent now and the room shifts with undercurrents that seem to take them both by surprise. Connie finds herself touching his face, her fingers brushing through the short bristles he has not yet had the time to shave. He looks good with a beard, although from the small cuts she can feel under her fingertips she suspects the current length is an infrequent style for him. (_The straight razor wrapped in its towel at the sink speaks of proficiency – for him to cut himself his hands must have been shaking.) _Connie pulls tentatively at the curls tumbling against his jawline, and at his slow, deliberate inhale she gives in to the urge and buries both hands in his hair. This close she can pick up the notes of honeysuckle from his shampoo. The light filtering through the room’s rose-tinted shades seems to catch sharply in his eyes.

“And then I bubbled us.” His voice has deepened. It vibrates through the heels of her palms and licks down her spine.

“Bubbled?” It comes out a whisper.

“Like this.” The sphere from before reappears and encloses them and the bed with the sound of a tolling bell. Connie offers a hum of admiration that has Steven closing his eyes. He leans into her touch, left hand rising to keep hers at his cheek. “We were trapped together for hours. I thought it was because I had just discovered this power, but I think a part of me just wanted to protect that time with you. You were finally – ”

He trails off and the sphere dematerializes. If she were not still holding his face, she thinks he might have pulled away. “Little boys can be stupid.”

_ I can’t ask you to do that_. A child’s miserable deflection not remembered but felt in the lowering of his eyes and the twisting of her heart. It is a challenging thing to navigate, the contrast of their experienced timelines, the uncertainty in their marriage as she discovers (_as he discovers_) who she is now, but this attraction is allowed. Connie wants it, has already expressed to him that she needs it, but it is only now that she realizes that Steven also needs reassurance for the desire he still holds for her. Reassurance (_forgiveness_) he will never consciously ask for.

How had it felt to be told something good and giving of himself was now poisonous to her? That his wife could be further broken by his touch?

“Not stupid.” The shadow in his words is familiar. (_Unfit. Unwanted._) She hopes she was not part of whatever made Steven think of himself this way; she will not be again. “It sounds incredible.”

Steven’s eyes slide back up to hers as if she has said something profound and his smile tilts again at the sight of hers. Always to the right, like there is more than one expression in the curve of his mouth.  
  


* * *

  
Connie wants to see them all.  
  


* * *

His own questions, when he is given room to ask them: her favorite color (_blue, then red, but pink is growing on her_). Her favorite spot in Beach City (_the lighthouse cliffs and the docks_). Her favorite sport that is not fencing, Connie, come on (_tennis_). She gives him these answers he already knows, held rapt by his attention and his abdication of assumption.

“What is your favorite thing about flying?”

“My favorite thing?” A pause as she searches for the right words, eyes on the seagulls wheeling overhead. “The power of it. The physicality of air you don’t realize until you leave the ground, the dynamism of space. Joy in absolute freedom.”

“Freedom?”

“It’s hard to explain unless you’ve been in the cockpit yourself.”

Steven plays with a strand of her hair that the wind has untucked from her bandages. “When you are cleared will you take me flying?” he asks, and she has never heard a question so much like a love song. It takes her a moment to come back from it.

“Of – of course, but a bit difficult without a plane. We can always rent one, schedule a route – ”

“Is this the right time for a guy to mention his uncle has his own airstrip?” This smile is more of a smirk, self-satisfied and unduly attractive in the face of her incredulity.

“What.”

“You can fly a Cessna, right?”

“You – _Can I fly a Cessna. _Steven, everyone_ starts_ on a Cessna. Of course I can fly it!”

“I don’t know – all that supersonic and FTL training, your propeller skills might be rusty.”

It takes her an embarrassing amount of time to realize he is egging her on just to watch her passionate break down of everything from the Extra to her beloved Talon, but when it hits she has already backed him against the patio railing that he seems all too happy to prop up, and she is too enamored by the tears of laughter curling down his cheeks to mind.  
  


* * *

What is a lover?

Is it the warm glide of lips and tongues that exists now only in her imagination, in the memories of her body that her mind cannot reach? Is it the welcomed press of someone else inside her, her voice pulled and held like silk against sweat-dampened skin? A powerful body coiled over or below her as she has longed for? As she is currently denied?

(_Yes._)

Can it also be the shortening of her breath when Steven collapses on the seat next to her with an unearthed box set of _Under the Knife, _bouncing her with the displacement as he sprawls relaxed and affectionate over half the couch? Can it be the sense of joy at the sounds of her favorite tea being made in the next room and the security felt with his returning footsteps? The feeling, not of completion, but of somehow being more than whole when she is near him?

“Are you tired, Connie? Princess hold or piggyback?”

“Oh wow, no. You should not have to carry me.”

“We can take turns.”

“I can’t possibly carry you!”

“You have, though. You do.”

(_Yes._)  
  


* * *

A lengthy talk with Pearl and a promise not to overwork herself as she is prone gets her phone returned to her permanently instead of with the hour limit her doctors had prescribed. Focus on herself and this adjustment, they had told her, and Connie had been too fixated on her own recovery plans to protest. She sees the merit of the restriction now as she scrolls through her phone.

Reminders and concerns from Director Fields about the upcoming assessment she scheduled. _(“Are you sure you are well enough for it?”_) Updates on the Initiative’s prototype warpship, recovered by gem sentinels from Smith and Deschene. Inquiries as to her health from her parents, and well wishes from colleagues and friends that she should remember clearly but does not.

She begins to feel lightheaded, pressure building in her temples.

An electronic chime, and a new message appears. (_Biscuit? Who on Earth?_) It is a veritable bomb of emojis that ranges from musical notes to butterflies to fruit of all things and a snort of laughter escapes her. The pressure eases. She slides up the message feed, curious, and the previous text dated the day of her failed mission pierces something hot and bright through her chest.

[_See you, space knight. Love you._]

Steven glances away from his conversation with Garnet to shoot her an inquiring look, thumb still poised over his phone.

Connie does not do emojis (_unprofessional_), but after a brief hesitation in which she swings between pragmatism and hope she sends a heart back and thrills in the victory of his startled grin.  
  


* * *

“Strawberry? Why Strawberry?”

“That’s unfair. I am not allowed to use any of the jokes you and that question deserve.”

“_Oh? _Come on, just give me one of them.”

“The very first time you smiled at me I was already bending a knee.”

“Wh- what?”

“_There._ Strawberry.”  
  


* * *

“Our first date,” Connie prompts over her project notes and Greg and Amethyst both splutter into their coffee. Greg apologizes and wipes at the spill spreading across the countertop with his shirttail before Connie can offer him her napkin (_her father-in-law is so sweetly earnest it pains her_) and the gem covers her mouth too late to fully stifle her laughter. The shield that had burst between Connie and the hot liquid vanishes into sparks of light as Steven brandishes his peeler in warning.

“Absolutely none of that. She’s just now starting to like me.”

“Yeah, this’s probably better as a private conversation,” Greg tries with sincerely attempted but fumbled tact that has Steven pinching the bridge of his nose and Connie hiding a smile. Amethyst waves a placating hand.

“Oh, come on, Steven. It’s a good story – ”

“Out of my kitchen.”

Amethyst throws her hands up in surrender and her chair scrapes back across the floor. An extended foot drags Greg’s chair out with her. “Yeah, yeah. C’mon, Greg. Vidalia wanted to start early, anyway.”

“Oh! Okay, sure. Guess we’re headed out. See you later, Connie. Son.” 

Connie sees them through the front door with a wave, then shifts her attention back to Steven. He has returned to preparing vegetables for the gazpacho he has promised her later. His pink apron is tied so that the straps cross over his back in an _x_ that follows the swell of his muscles, looping through the sides to cross over again into a loose bow at the curve of his spine. With his jeans and faded crewneck, the effect is somehow feminine and masculine to compelling extremes.

“So,” she says, accepting the slice of cucumber he hands her. It is refreshing and easy on a stomach still battling with side effects from radiation.

“It depends. Our first official date as a couple, or what I secretly considered our first date?”

She wants to know what the others had found so funny, but the obvious trap he has laid is too intriguing, and Steven seems embarrassed about the matter despite his good humor. “What did you consider our first?” she asks and the slight tension in his shoulders loosens. He takes several clippings from the herbs hanging from the sunlit wall.

“Let me preface this by saying I was thirteen going on eight at the time and had very simple ideas about what dates actually involved.”

“I understand that problem is normal for most young men.”

He laughs and shoots her a gratified smile. “Yes. Well, I took you to the movies.”

“Also quite normal.”

“I like to think I set myself apart just a little. We went on Lion.”

There are so many fantastical aspects of life with Steven that Connie now handwaves as the Universe Charm. A new realm to physics she is more than happy to explore. Just to hear him laugh again she asks: “Did you do the arm thing?”

“What, the fake yawn and stretch? No, I did not do the arm thing. One.” He holds up a finger that has bits of parsley clinging to it. “I was too short at the time. Two: despite my small and not at all obvious crush I was aware that it was not, in fact, a date. Three: _you_ put the armrest up so we could sit closer together and share the snacks you had us sneak in. I was happily outmaneuvered.”

He runs his ingredients through the blender and Connie returns to her paperwork. For a time, there is only the whir of the machine and the sound of running water as he cleans his workstation.

Then he asks: “Is that a romantic gesture you enjoy?”

A flip of her heart now familiar to her. “The physical contact, yes. The overall pose and effect. But not the play at subterfuge. You don’t seem a coy, secret gesture sort of date, anyway.”

The tokens of affection Steven offers are not always big or dramatic, but they are always open. A seat or space saved next to him. A freshly made bed he has convinced her to reclaim. His campaign to make her prescribed, largely liquid diet at all palatable for her.

“Yeah?” he asks as he washes his hands. “What kind of date do you think I am?”

“Definitely a flower guy.” She thinks of the rose symbol on his shield, his seeming way with the plants that are scattered throughout their home. “A single stem, or a bouquet. Petal trails, I bet, for special occasions. Hard schmaltz.”

Steven looks delightfully called out, but he rallies. “What are your favorite flowers these days?”

“Gladiolus,” she replies absently as she returns to her notes. Losing her memory of Steven and his world meant that she has forgotten much of the gem based technology and procedures in her own work. It is a race to catch up. She points to him with her pen. “Let’s see. You’re also a musician. So, there would be a guitar involved at some point. A song you’d have written for me.”

“There’s an idea. You should come to my show in November. Artfall in Charm City.” He braces himself against the counter with forearms still wet with suds, bringing himself to her eye level to entreat her attention. So earnest, like his father, as if there could be any possibility that she would not love to watch him perform. (_That she would not fight to do so._) He flicks a stray leaf at her and chuckles at her mock glare. “What else have I got going on?”

“For a first date? There would be a long walk along the beach, or maybe a drive along the coast.” Delmarva is beautiful. It makes the long commute to Goddard worth it, and she imagines it would be even better with someone next to her. She looks at Steven in the rainbow cloud of sunlight and soap bubbles and the words seem pulled from her. “Windows down, of course, for wind mussed hair, and music blaring.”

“Oh, of course.”

“Right? All the classic hits, then something crazy neither of us like but that we sing to anyway. Dinner somewhere with wine chilling in ice with two glasses waiting, placed just so. A firepit if it is cold enough. Stargazing.”

“I like this version a lot more,” Steven says with a grin. “Very detailed.”

She laughs.

“Yes, well, I’ve had some time to imagine it. No one ever – ”

Connie stops.

(_Wanted her._)

A lie from the void in her memory.

Steven does not let her fall.

“I’ll take you.” His voice is warm, a thermal where damaged wings can rest. He is not smiling now but his steady regard, the absolute certainty in his eyes, conveys a lifetime of love almost too bright to look at. “Dinner, the drive. Everything.” He swallows. “More. If you want.”

Connie massages at the heat expanding in her chest. “Still not up to spec for dates.” A weak joke because other words are too big for her throat. (_All of him._) “But. Yeah.”

“I will wait.”  
  


* * *

  
Connie presses her lips to the red flowers she finds on her nightstand the next morning and wishes they were him.  
  


* * *

When Pearl is called away on emergency and Connie is left alone Steven does not pause when she asks for help: “Whatever you need.”

He does not flinch at the line of stitches in her scalp, at the red and ugly marks the solar winds had pressed into her like banded iron across her back and stomach, excepting a tightening of his jaw at his inability to remove her pain: “You are the strongest, most beautiful person I know.”

His hands are reverent as they wrap her first in ointment, then non-adherent dressings, finally the cotton and bandages he secures like armor befitting his nickname for her. Still she feels vulnerable, the white flash of his wedding band passing in front of her with each circuit of the bandages around her chest, and when she asks, he does not deny her. Connie’s ring hangs from a too fragile chain, an unbroken circle of gold that – _oh, that she recognizes_ –

– That he keeps in his hand so that she does not have to give it back to him.

Connie meets Steven’s eyes in the mirror. Sees his loving acceptance of this sword she has leveled at his throat. She takes it from him.

“This is my pilot’s charm.”

“What?”

“A pilot’s lucky charm. Aviators always carry some picture or token with them. This is mine.”

Connie runs her thumb over the gold still warmed from his pocket, repeating the patterns he likely traced as he watched her stand without him. But she has not been without him and this inexorable realization binds them, fills her with a shining certainty that almost brings her to tears.

She struggles to express it. “Before every flight I’ve ever taken, every mission I’ve been sent on, I’ve kissed this ring as a promise to fly safe, to come back.” The same ritual, again and again. Had the other – (_No._) Had she never told him?

Had she reached for this as she burned?

“I – Steven my promise has been for _you_. Even though I don’t remember, it was still you with me, all this time, I – ”

She leans back against him and his arms encircle her in his strength. They pull her carefully against his chest and even through the bandages she can feel his heart racing. Her hands come up to curl around his clasped at her stomach.

“Connie.”

“May I wear it?”

Steven rests his cheek against the back of her head and closes his eyes. The sight of their tangled hair, of the new and awed smile parting his lips, sharpens her longing almost to its breaking point. She strokes her thumb over his knuckles, over the platinum ring on his left hand.

“It’s yours,” is all he says.  
  


* * *

  
What is a husband?  
  


* * *

“You’re home early.”

Steven props himself up with one arm and rubs the sleep from his eyes, catching the pair of wireless headphones that tumble from his head to his chest at his motion. Vivaldi’s _Summer_ can be heard playing from them, the strings clear in the still room even at their low volume. He puts the headphones down next to his empty cup on the coffee table and swings legs still clad in yesterday’s jeans over the side of the couch. Tries in vain to smooth his hair. Connie bolts the front door behind her and collects herself.

This will be another thing she changes, she decides, looking at the lines pressed into his arms from the rumpled sheets he has tossed to the side, at the stiffness in his large frame despite all his insistence to the contrary. His hair is more tousled now for his efforts, stubble already dark on his face outside its normal styling, and one strap of his shirt has slipped off his shoulder. In the predawn gloom his skin seems to glow.

“I didn’t mean to wake you up,” she says. Consideration and emotion keep her voice quiet. He shakes his head.

“I didn’t mean to fall back asleep. What time is it?”

“Still early.”

Steven reaches for the phone half-buried between the seat cushions as she crosses over to him. She tugs his (_distracting_) shirt strap back in place and he curves his free hand around her waist to pull her closer. An automatic response to her affection she knows he would have tempered if he were more awake.

He looks at the phone, then up at her. “It’s only 6:40.” 

Worry begins to crease the skin between his eyebrows, so Connie runs her hands through his hair. The nascent tension leaves him with a hum as his curls are set to rights, and he almost seems to drift off again, fingers sliding down her waist to splay at her hip. Connie steps between his parted knees so that Steven can rest his face against her chest.

“What happened with your assessment?” he asks after a moment.

Her fingers pause in their rhythm near his temples.

“Rescheduled it. It was always voluntary I go in today, so…” Her fingers resume. “We just pushed it back. Extended my leave of absence, actually, until September.”

(_“Less than a month since you sixed, Maheswaran. The only person demanding you back in the saddle this soon is you.”_)

“Until September.” Not a question this time, just the suggestion of one if she is ready for it.

There are many things that Connie is not ready for. Hard to admit it, but the realization frees something inside her even as it threatens to shame her. (_She will not be shamed_.) She is not ready to return to NASA. She is not ready to see the broken remains of her ship, to face the possibility that she cannot sync with the gem system that had almost killed her in order to save her. (_Not with half of herself gone._) To return to the field before her recovery is a liability, a betrayal of herself and her team.

But that realization is not what had her nearly slamming on her breaks to pull over to the highway shoulder only forty minutes out from Beach City. What had her on the phone, almost frantic, with Director Fields, only his military cadence keeping her from a full nosedive.

(_Steven walks her to the car, offers her a drowsy but encouraging smile. Turns the instinctive lean for a parting kiss he cannot give her into a gallant reach for her door handle._)

She had left her husband alone. When the last time he waved her off to work (_she did not come home_) he had almost lost her. Steven had let her do that to him.

To lift her to her sky.

What would she do, the woman she had been before? An apology? Connie had examined the impulse on the drive back Route 50, the pedal edging closer to the floor the more she thought of him on that empty beach, watching her drive into a horizon darkened further by the day’s promised rain. (_“He has a standing visitor’s pass. I… was remiss not to remind you. Steven is family.” _) A seemingly benign desire born more from long residual, mud-trodden doubts of self-worth rather than actual remorse. (_Offbeat, not offcast. She is not nothing._) To cheapen Steven’s love this way is anathema to her.

Call him out? Her guilt above his choice? Worse. An attack, a rejection not just of the gesture but of the selfless man behind it. (_Too good at attacking, dissecting. What is left in the pall of righteousness?)_

In the end, it does not matter what Connie would have done before. All she has (_all Steven seems to want_) is the woman she is now. Ruthless in drive for this life of her own making. Unrepentant in desire.

Selfish.

And maybe Steven needs her to be.

“I want to kiss you.”

Steven becomes still underneath her, the pulse at the base of his neck the only sign he has heard the whispered words, and it is a long moment before he moves again. He leans back to look up at her, all traces of sleep gone.

“Connie?”

Pulled from his hair, her fingers stroke down his face in a deliberate caress. “I’ve been thinking about this for a while.” She has been curious about it since the moment she woke up to the knowledge that this man was hers. “You cannot kiss me, but if _I _kiss you, I’d be fine, wouldn’t I?” Her thumbs catch in the faint dimples of his cheeks that turn every expression into a stanza. His lips part. (_Beautiful, not dangerous._) “Anywhere. Just not your mouth.” 

“You would be.”

The affirmation comes out on autopilot. His eyes are wide.

“That’s information I should know, Steven.” But she understands. Worry of pressuring her. Endangering her. She has worries, too, for him, but they can dispel them. Connie allows her longing to leak into her voice. “You insufferably wonderful man.” Her hands move to hold either side of his face, tilting it up further toward her. “May I kiss you?”

“Yes.”

“Steven…” And Connie presses her lips to his cheek.

Her first kiss lands on the dark border of his morning stubble. Rough under her lips, bright-tasting shocks like static, the sensation is intimate on a level she cannot parse. Perhaps it is because Steven normally shaves by now, the scent of lather clinging to him long after the morning ritual, to Connie’s secret delight. This part of him. New and just for her.

(_The boy’s face is hidden, unclear. His cheek is smooth and warming from his rising blush._)

Connie pulls back and breathes in the rightness of the man trembling in her hold. “I kissed you here first, a long time ago, didn’t I?”

Steven tries to speak, but his words dissolve in a quiet sigh as her second kiss lands on the curve of his cheekbone. Her third she presses to the skin just above his brow, and after that Connie stops counting for a while. Slow and lingering, she kisses him as Steven’s arms enclose her, one hand at the small of her back, the other careful just above it, fingers stretched along her spine. She tastes salt and something that reminds her of spring, of flowers in bloom, and the realization that even his tears are sweet breaks the rest of her restraint.

(_Her earthbound star._)

“I want this,” she tells him, stroking his bangs back to press a kiss to his hairline. His breath hitches. “I want you, Steven. This with you. More, when I’m ready.” A kiss to his forehead. “When _you’re _ready. Whatever you can give me. Please. I want you to want me.”

“I do.” The low rumble of his voice across her throat, resonance in her chest as the words spread and fill her. “Want you.”

Their eyes meet and Connie’s heart stutters at the experienced lover looking back at her, a man practiced in her pleasure. Steven lets her see it, watches the flush of joy settle on her face at this admission, and assured that he is welcomed he pulls her up into his arms and across his lap. The action so effortless for him that she laughs. He tilts a smile in return as her arms wind around his neck.

“I want you happy,” he whispers. A shift of the powerful thigh beneath her as he leans them against the backrest. A difference in the way he touches her, friendship amplified to decadence with the comforting swirl of his thumb across the underside of her knee. Their position affords them the same height, their eyes now level in the dark, and something in that thrills her.

(_Somehow funny, to not have to look up at him.)_

Connie plays with the flip of curls at the back of his neck as his hand strokes up her leg to her waist. “You make me happy.”

“I want you _safe_.” A hint of his fear for her, soft in the heat of him.

“I am safe with you. We can be careful. I trust us.” (_Please trust her._)

Steven’s eyes drop to her mouth and her heart skips again. “I’ve also thought about this.” Slowly he takes her chin in his hand and Connie cannot breathe. “Ways I can still kiss you.”

“You have?”

“Connie. Every time I look at you.”

Her mouth parts at the languid stroke of his thumb across her lower lip. Back and forth, the rough callus from his guitar strumming a melodic sigh from her throat. A precursor to a kiss. A placeholder. But one that sends golden heat cascading through her with the longing he pours into the caress.

“I thought this – ” His thumb strokes across the bow of her upper lip. “– Might work for now.” His eyes slide back up to hers. It takes Connie a moment to speak. The words catch against his skin.

“It works.”

His waterfall chuckle brings more heat to her face and her eyes close at the deeper hum of satisfaction that follows. “Yeah?” His thumb moves away (_she aches at the loss_), his hand sliding through her hair to cup the back of her head. “Then, maybe…”

He pulls her to him gently so that his forehead rests against hers and Connie is unprepared for the shock of this new intimacy. His eyes are so close to hers, watching her with a depth of love that still feels unreal. His nose strokes down hers and she can taste the ghost of tea on his breath. Ceylon and honey.

“How is this?”

“_Steven._”

She can feel the change in his expression, the upturn of his brows as his smile grows into something truly breathtaking. Not tilted, but full and bright and so unreservedly, impossibly_ happy_. It breaks against her like the light of dawn seeping through the gathering clouds outside.

Then Steven rubs his nose against hers, a quick and silly motion that softens the charge between them, and Connie jolts and then laughs with him at the absurdity of it.

“Steven!”

“That’s three for three.”

“_What?_”

“Three ideas for how to kiss you. Give me some time, and I promise you I’ll think of more.” His smile gentles as their laughter fades. Easy warmth between them now. His hand glides through her hair in a last caress before falling to his side. “What are your plans for the day, since Marshall let you go?”

“Practically ordered me home.” She spins the silver stud in his ear. “I was hoping to spend it with you.”

“It’s supposed to storm later. Great for a movie or gaming marathon.”

More time she can be alone with him. Wrapped in him. “Sounds perfect.”

He stands them up and she lets herself slide down his body to her feet. He squeezes her shoulders. “Let me make us breakfast, and maybe you can tell me how that talk went. I can’t imagine anyone ordering you to do anything. Is there anything you want? We’ve got vegetable strata from yesterday, or I could whip up some eggs and toast if you’re hungry now. Pancakes.”

“Really, whatever you want, Steven.”

“Strawberry crepes, then. I’ve been practicing.”

A quick brush of his thumb across her lip again and he steps away from her. It is then that Connie realizes that the pink glow of the room is not the dawn as she supposed. Rain beats gently against the windowpanes, the sky still dark in contrast to the shine of Steven’s gem under the thin fabric of his shirt. She reaches out and like before he lets her touch him, stepping back into her space as his hand holds hers to the light.

“What does it mean? That it glows?”

“That I am the luckiest man to have you here with me.”

Warm like the rest of him, alien and yet so familiar to her. His gem feels like music, like the harmony of strings still winding softly in the air.

Steven feels like flying.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was nearly my Rubicon, but it is finally done after almost three months of countless rewrites. I don’t want to declare this story a full AU just yet (I am still holding out for a happy, relatively open-ended finish to SUF), but I am no longer going to pull my hair out trying to make all the details of this story fit canon. Small tweaks to previous chapters will be made in the near future, but nothing that should disturb your reading experience.
> 
> Thank you to all who have continued to follow/kudos/comment on this story through its long (but necessary) hiatus. And my deepest, warmest gratitude to Hadithi and EchoFour, who helped me through my insecurity as to this chapter’s content and structure.


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